The gala was the Sterling Foundation’s annual fundraiser, one of the biggest events on the foundation’s calendar and one Victoria had been preparing for since before Ethan had signed anything. It mattered more than the investor dinner had. The people in that room would be writing checks to programs that fed children, funded scholarships, kept community health clinics running.
Victoria took it seriously in a way she didn’t even take board meetings. She was also, as the event approached, running on approximately 4 hours of sleep a night and surviving on coffee and whatever Ethan left in the kitchen. You need to eat a real meal before the gala, he told her on Thursday, 4 days before the event. I’m eating.
Standing over the sink at 11 p.m. isn’t eating. I was in a time crunch. Victoria, he said it the same way he always did. She was starting to recognize it. the way he said her name when she was being unreasonable and he wasn’t going to argue about it. Just state the case. I have 47 emails to respond to tonight, she said.
Then you have 47 emails to respond to after dinner. Sit down. She sat down. He made her an actual dinner. Chicken, which he’d prepared earlier and reheated with rice and the green beans she’d mentioned once in passing that she liked. She ate all of it, which he noted without saying anything.
You know what’s strange? she said toward the end of the meal. Probably a lot of things. This is the most regularly I’ve eaten in 6 years. She said it without apparent irony. I used to forget lunch entirely. Sometimes dinner. What changed? She gave him a look. You put food in front of me. Your people need you functional, he said. The foundation needs you functional.
Is that why you feed me? Organizational efficiency? He looked at her. No, he said. She looked back at him. The silence lasted maybe two seconds too long to be comfortable and then she looked down at her plate and the moment dissolved. The gala, she said. Tell me what you need. She told him. He listened.
She needed him to work the room in a specific way. Not graves this time, but a collection of foundation donors whose continued giving was not guaranteed. old money families who were skeptical of new leadership. People who had loved Richard Sterling the way people love figures they project their values onto. They need to believe I’m not just my father’s corporation, Victoria said.
They need to believe there’s a person there who understands what the foundation is actually for. Are they wrong about you? She hesitated. The corporation has made demands. There have been times when the foundation’s priorities got secondary treatment because the board wanted it that way. She said it with the particular discomfort of someone admitting to something they weren’t proud of.
I let it happen once or twice when I shouldn’t have. It’s one of the things I’m trying to correct. So tell them that at a gala. Maybe not the financial details, but the intention. He leaned forward. You want them to see a person, then be one. People can tell when someone’s performing and when they’re not. She studied him.
You do that naturally. I grew up around people who didn’t have any reason to perform. You get used to reading the difference. The gala when it came was the largest event Ethan had attended in his life. The Sterling Foundation had rented a museum hall and filled it with flowers, a live orchestra, and approximately 300 people in formal wear.
Ethan wore a tuxedo that Victoria had sent someone to fit for him a week in advance. He’d argued about this and lost, and he had to admit, standing in the mirror before they left, that it was the best he’d looked in years. Lily, who was being watched by Mrs. Caruso for the evening, had informed him solemnly that he looked like a real penguin, and that this was a compliment.
Victoria came downstairs in something dark green that did things to the light around her, and Ethan looked at her for a moment longer than he’d intended and said, “Ready?” and she said yes and they went to the gala. The evening went well until it didn’t. The crisis arrived around 9:00 in the form of a journalist, not a hostile one, just an opportunistic one, who cornered Victoria near the bar and started asking questions about the board’s recent motions.
Someone had leaked not the specific details of the marriage clause, but the existence of a governance challenge at Sterling Capital. And this journalist had done enough homework to make the questions pointed. Ethan saw Victoria’s face change. Not dramatically. She was too controlled for that. But he’d been living with her for 3 months, and he could read the micro adjustments now.
The slight tightening around the jaw, the careful stillness that meant she was managing something. He crossed the room. He didn’t burst in. He came up next to her with the easy movement of a man approaching his wife at a party. touched the small of her back lightly and said to the journalist pleasantly, “Sorry to interrupt, David Marsh, right? I read your piece on the infrastructure bill last year.
Thought the sourcing was exceptional.” The journalist blinked. You read Victoria Harrison Ellery has been looking for you. I told him you’d be over in a few minutes. He looked at the journalist again. She’ll find you later tonight if you want to continue. Is that all right? It was done smoothly enough that the journalist seemed genuinely charmed rather than brushed off.
